John Locke's Teachings and Theories

Throughout the 17th century, John Locke presented contemporary society with his theories and hypotheses that cleared up the order of natural law and fulfilled humanity's divine purpose for living. It all began in 1647, as a youthful boy when he attended the prestigious Wc2 School in London under the support of Alexander Popham. During his years at the Westminster School, this individual found the effort of modern philosophers more interesting than the material being taught at the university. Much of Locke's influence and later work was characterized by level of resistance to authoritarianism, which centered on both the standard of the individual person and on the degree of institutions including government and church. Locke wanted each of us to work with reason to locate after real truth rather than basically accept the opinion of authorities or perhaps be controlled by superstition. This individual wanted all of us to proportion go along with the proposition for the evidence to them. Locke came to the conclusion that there must be a balance and mutual understanding between individuality and sociable institutions in which society will not likely feel suppressed under man-made law and restrictions. Ruben Locke assumed that all know-how comes from experience. Experience is composed of two parts: external and internal. External experiences happen to be ideas of supposed external objects. These objects get into our thoughts through experience. Examples of sensations would be warm, cold, reddish, yellow, hard, soft, lovely and nasty. Internal activities are reflections that make all of us understand the operation on the objects of feeling. Examples of reflections are thinking, ready, believing, doubting, affirming, denying, and contrasting. Once again Locke goes back to his first step toward principles simply by reaffirming that in order to achieve success and experience there must be a functional relationship between individual goals and the rules of society. Sensation and reflection is the two fountains of knowledge. Our ideas we can naturally include or have therefore already arrive...